I turned and again ran toward the darkness, toward which I had seen Telima run, from whence I had heard a girl's scream.
"Free me!" I heard.
In the darkness I found a girl, stripped, bound hand and foot.
"Free me!" she cried. "Free me!"
I lifted her to a sitting position. It was not Telima. I threw her weeping back to the rence.
Then, some twenty yards to my left, and ahead of me, I saw a single torch.
I ran toward it.
It was Telima!
She had been thrown to her stomach. Already, with binding fiber, her wrists had been tied tightly behind her. A warrior now crouched at her ankles. With a few swift motions he fastened them together.
I seized him and spun him about, breaking in his face with a blow. Spitting teeth, his face a mask of blood, he tried to draw his sword. I lifted him over my head and threw him screaming into the jaws of tharlarion churning the marsh at the edge of the island. They had feasted much that night, and would more.
The slave who had carried his torch ran back toward the light, crying out.
Telima had turned on her side and was watching me. "I don't want to be a slave," she wept.
In a moment warriors would be upon us.
I picked her up in my arms.
"I don't want to be a slave," she said. "I don't want to be a slave!"
"Be silent," I told her.
I looked about. For the instant we were alone. Then the night began to burn to my left. One of the rence islands, tied in the group, had begun to burn.
I cast madly about, looking for some possibility of escape.
On one side there was the marsh, with its marsh sharks and its tharlarion.
Here and there, on the water, apart from the flaming rence island, I could see the flat, black keels of rence craft, which had earlier been cast off and burned to the water, to prevent them from being used for escape.
On the other side there were the lights and torches, the cries of men, the slavers of Port Kar.
In the distance I could see, across one of the bridges formed of rafts for transporting rence, one of those I had helped to place earlier that very morning, stripped rencers, men and women, being herded by spears toward our island. Their wrists had been bound behind their backs and ropes had been tied about their necks.
Then I saw another island take fire, one far to the right.
I heard shouts from the area of torches and confusion. Warriors were coming.
The rafts, the bridges, I thought, the rafts!
Carrying Telima in my arms I sped about the periphery of the rence island, meeting no one. The area had been cleared earlier by the sweep of the great nets, carried by slaves. There were no rencers there and, doubtless because of that, none of Port Kar, though I did see many torches, going to the place on the island where we had shortly before stood; then the torches there divided, half going to the left, half coming to the right, our direction.
Somewhere I heard the voice of Henrak crying out. "Get the girl! I want the girl!"
I came to one of the raft bridges I had helped to fasten in place that morning, shortly after dawn. I placed Telima in the center of the raft. Then I began to tear loose the rence-rope fastenings, fixed to stakes thrust through the rence.
The torches were moving towards us, coming from the right, around the periphery of the island.
There were eight fastenings, four on a side. I had torn loose six when I heard the shout, "Stop!"
The nearby island was now burning ever more rapidly and wildly in the night and soon the entire area would be illuminated.
It was only one man who had called out, a guard perhaps, one patrolling this supposedly cleared area.
His spear fell near me, dropping through the rence of the raft. Then he was running forward, sword at the ready. It was his own spear that met him. It passed well through his body.
I turned madly about. No one else, it seemed, had yet seen us.
My leg slipped from the island into the water and suddenly a tiny tharlarion struck it, seizing his bit of flesh and backing, tail whipping, away. My leg was out of the water, but now the water seemed yellow with the flashing bodies of tiny tharlarion, and, beyond them, I heard the hoarse grunting of the great marsh tharlarion, some of which grow to be more than thirty feet in length, weighing more than half a hundred men. Beyond them would be the almost eel-like, long-bodied, nine-gilled Gorean marsh sharks.
I jerked loose the last two fastenings, and tore rence from the edge of the island, heaping it on the raft, covering Telima.
The torches were nearer now.
I heaped more rence on the craft and then, with one foot, thrust off from the islands between which the raft had been fastened. I slipped beneath the rence on the raft, next to the girl. I put my hand over her mouth, tightly, that she might be unable to cry out. She struggled slightly, pulling against the bonds that constrained her. I saw her eyes looking at me, frightened, over my hand.
The torches passed.
Unnoticed, the raft, with its heaped rence, drifted away from between the islands.
7
I Will Hunt
Lost among the rushes and sedge, out in the darkness of the marsh, some hundred yards from the rence islands, two of which were burning, Telima, bound, and I, a garland of rence flowers bloodied in my hair, watched the movement of torches, listened to the shouts of men, the screams of women, the cries of children.
The men of Port Kar had set fire to the two islands, beginning at the farther edges, to drive any who might be concealed on them, perhaps having cut burrows into the rence or hiding in the center oar wells, across the bridges toward the central island, on which had been the pole of the dance, Telima's hut. Those who had so concealed themselves must then choose between the fire, the marsh, and the nets of slavers. We saw several running across the bridges, crying out, being whipped toward the torches by those of Port Kar. Then the tetherings on the two burning islands were cut away with swords and they floated away, free, afire into the marsh.
Later, about an Ahn before dawn, the two other rence islands, tethered to the central island, were similarly set afire, their fugitives, too, being driven to the nets and binding fiber of the men of Port Kar. Then these two islands, too, were cut free and floated burning into the marsh.
By the time that dawn's gray knife had touched the waters of the marsh the work of the men of Port Kar was mostly done.
Their slaves, their torches extinguished, were loading the narrow, high-prowed barges, treading long, narrow planks extending from the barges to the matting of the island. Some of them carried rolls of rence paper, tied together by marsh vine, others the human booty of the raid. I gathered that much rence paper had been taken from the four islands, before they had been set afire. Surely there was more being loaded than could have been on the central island alone. The rence paper was loaded forward, carefully, in stacks, like corded wood, that it not be damaged. The slaves, like fish, were thrown between the rowers benches, and aft, forward of the tiller deck, three and four deep. There were six ships. One beautiful girl was tied to the prow of each ship that, in returning to Port Kar, others might see that the raid had been successful. I was not surprised to see that it was the dark-haired, lithe girl, who had been so marvelously legged in the brief rence tunic, that was bound to the prow of the flagship of that small barge fleet. I supposed that had Telima been taken, that place might have been hers. At the prows of the second and third ships I saw two others of my tormentors, the blond, gray-eyed girl, who had carried marsh vine, and the shorter, dark-haired girl, who had carried a net over her left shoulder.
As the barges, loading, sank deeper in the water, I looked on Telima. She sat beside me, bound, my arm about her shoulders. She stared at the distant barges. Her eyes seemed vacant, empty. She was mine now.
On the island now, in its center, near the pole, there stood, packed together, a miserable crowd of prisoners. The two wall nets, tied together and passed twice
around the group, pressed in on them, holding them together, standing. Many of them had their fingers in the meshes, staring outward. Guards, with spears, stood about the net, occasionally jabbing here and there, keeping the prisoners quiet. Within the net there were men, and women and children. Some guards, with crossbows, stood off a bit. Near the net I saw Henrak, still with the white scarf tied across his body, still clutching the heavy wallet, filled perhaps with gold. He was conversing with the bearded officer, tall and with the golden slashes on the temples of his helmet. Within the net the rencers were clothed. They were the last of the catch. There was perhaps a hundred of them. One by one they were being taken from the net, the net being tightened again by slaves, and stripped and bound, hand and foot. The slaves who were loading the barges would then gather up each new slave, carrying him to the barges, adding him to the others.
About the island there was much litter, the garbage from the feast, the remains of destroyed rence huts, broken boxes, torn rence sacks, shattered marsh spears, gourds, scattered marsh vine, spilled rence reeds, bodies.
Two wild gants alighted on the island, away from the men and their prisoners, and began pecking about the ruins of one of the rence huts, probably after seeds or bits of rence cake.
A small domesticated tarsk, grunting and snuffling, pattered across rence matting that was the surface of the island. One of the slavers, a man with a conical helmet, called the animal to him. He scratched it behind the ears and then threw it squealing out into the marsh. There was a rapid movement in the water and it was gone.
I saw an Ul, the winged tharlarion, high overhead, beating its lonely way eastward over the marsh.
Then, after a time, the last of the slaves had been secured and placed on the barges. The slaves of the men of Port Kar then separated the nets, rolling them, then folding them, then placing them on the barges. They then drew up the planks and took their seats at the rowers' benches, to which, unprotesting, one by one, they were shackled. The last two aboard had been Henrak, with his white scarf, and the tall, bearded officer, he with the golden slashes on the temples of his helmet. Henrak, I gathered, would be a rich man in Port Kar. The slavers of Port Kar, being in their way wise men, seldom betray and enslave those such as Henrak, who have served them so well. Did they so, they would find fewer Henraks in the marshes.
The high-prowed marsh barge is anchored at both stem and stern. Soon, each drawn by two warriors, the anchor-hooks, curved and three-pronged, not unlike large grappling irons, emerged dripping from the mud of the marsh. These anchor-hooks, incidentally, are a great deal lighter than the anchors used in the long galleys, and the round ships.
The officer, standing on the tiller deck of the flagship, lifted his arm.
In marsh barges there is no time-beater, or keleustes, but the count to the oarsmen is given by mouth, by one spoken of as the oar-master. He sits somewhat above the level of the rowers, but below the level of the tiller deck. He, facing the rowers, faces toward the ship's bow, they, of course, in their rowing facing the stern.
The officer on the tiller deck, Henrak at his side, let fall his hand.
I heard the oar-master cry out and I saw the oars, with a sliding of wood, emerge from the thole ports. They stood poised, parallel, over the water, the early-morning sun illuminating their upper surfaces. I noted that they were no more than a foot above the water, so heavily laden was the barge. Then, as the oar-master again cried out, they entered as one into the water; and then, as he cried out again, each oar drew slowly in the water, and then turned and lifted, the water falling in the light from the blades like silver chains.
The barge, deep in the water, began to back away from the island. Then, some fifty yards away, it turned slowly, prow now facing away from the island, toward Port Kar. I heard the oar-master call his time again and again, not hurrying his men, each time more faintly than the last. Then the second barge backed away from the island, turned and followed the first, and then so, too, did the others.
I stood up on the raft of rence reed, and looked after the barges. At my feet, half covered with the rence reeds with which we had concealed ourselves, lay Telima. I reached to my head and drew away the garland of rence flowers which I had worn at festival. There was some blood on it, from the blow I had received during the raid. I looked down at Telima, who turned her head away, and then I threw the bloodied garland of rence flowers into the marsh.
* * * *
I stood on the surface of the rence island. I looked about myself. I had taken some of the reeds which had been heaped on the raft and, bundling them, had used them, paddling, to move the raft back to the island. I had not wished to place a limb in the marsh, particularly in this area, though, to be sure, it seemed clearer now. I had tethered the raft at the island's shore. Telima still lay upon the raft.
I climbed the curve of the matted shore until I came to the higher surface of the island.
It was quiet.
A flock of marsh gants, wild, took flight, circled, and then, seeing I meant them no harm, returned to the island, though to its farther shore.
I saw the pole to which I had been tied, the circle of the feast, the ruins of huts, the litter and the broken things, and the scattered things, and the bodies.
I returned to the raft and picked up Telima in my arms, carrying her to the high surface of the island where, near the pole, I placed her on the matting.
I bent to her, and she drew away, but I turned her and unbound her.
"Free me," I told her.
Unsteadily she stood up and, with fumbling fingers, untied the knot that bound the five coils of the collar of marsh vine about my neck.
"You are free," she whispered.
I turned away from her. There would be something edible on the island, if only the pith of rence. I hoped there would be water.
I saw the remains of a tunic which had been cut from a rencer, doubtless before his binding. I took what was left of it and, with its lacing, bound it about my waist.
I kept the sun behind me that I might follow, in the shadows on the rence matting before me, the movements of the girl. I saw, thus, her bending down and taking up of the broken shaft of a marsh spear, about a yard long, its three prongs intact.
I turned to face her, and looked at her.
She was startled. Then, holding the pronged spear before her, crouching down, she threatened me. She moved about me. I stood easily, turning when necessary to face her. I knew the distance involved and what she might do. Then as, with a cry of rage, she thrust at me, I took the spear from her grasp, disarming her, tossing it to one side.
She backed away, her hand before her mouth.
"Do not attempt again to kill me," I said.
She shook her head.
I looked at her. "It seemed to me," I said, "last night that you much feared slavery."
I indicated that she should approach me.
Only when I had unbound her had I noticed, on her left thigh, the tiny mark, which had been burned into her flesh long ago, the small letter in cursive script which was the initial letter of Kajira, which is the most common Gorean word for a female slave. Always before, in the lighted hut, she had kept that side from me; in the day it had been covered by her tunic; in the night, in the darkness and tumult, I had not noticed it; on the raft it had been concealed in the reeds of the rence plant, with which I had covered her.
She had now come closer to me, as I had indicated she should, and stood now where, if I wished, I might take her in my grasp.
"You were once slave," I told her.
She fell to her knees, covering her eyes with her hands, weeping.
"But I gather," said I, "you somehow made your escape."
She nodded, weeping. "On beams bound together," she said, "poling into the marsh from the canals."
It was said that never had a slave girl escaped from Port Kar, but this, doubtless like many such sayings, was not true. Still, the escape of a slave girl, or of a male slave, must indeed be rare from canale
d Port Kar, protected as it is on one side by the Tamber Gulf and gleaming Thassa, and on the other by the interminable marshes, with their sharks and tharlarion. Had Telima not been a rence girl, she would, I supposed, most likely, have died in the marshes. I knew that Ho-Hak, too, had escaped from Port Kar. There were doubtless others.
"You must be very brave," I said.
She lifted her eyes, red with weeping, to me.
"And your master," I said, "you must have hated him very much."
Her eyes blazed.
"What was your slave name?" I asked. "By what name did he choose to call you?"
She looked down, shaking her head. She refused to speak.
"It was Pretty Slave," I told her.
She looked up at me, red-eyed, and cried out with grief. Then she put her head down to the rence, shoulders shaking, and wept. "Yes," she said. "Yes, yes."
I left her and went to look further about. I went to the remains of her hut. There, though the hut itself was destroyed, I found much of what had been in it. Most pleased I was to find the water gourd, which was still half filled. I also took the wallet of food, that which she had once tied about her waist. Before I left I noted, among the broken rence and other paraphernalia, some throwing sticks and such, the tunic of rence cloth which she had slipped off before me the night previously, before commanding me to serve her pleasure, before we had heard the cry "Slavers!" I picked it up and carried it, with the other things, to where she still knelt, near the pole, head down, weeping.
I tossed the tunic of rence cloth before her.
She looked at it, unbelievingly. Then she looked up at me, stunned.
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